We Walk Forward
by Literary Litany
Summary: Implied NineRose. Set during 'Dalek'. The silence after a failure to kill is deafening.


**We Walk Forward**

_By Literary Litany_

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She was cold. Everything was so very cold, and there was nothing else she knew for as far back as she remembered. How then, did she know that she was cold? If she had never felt heat, warmth, the very rightness of existence, then how did she know that anything was wrong?

She looked at herself, Rose Tyler, through the shifting blue vision that now understood as it saw. A Dalek is not supposed to understand. It is not supposed to empathize. It _can't_.

Does that mean she is no longer a Dalek?

A shudder runs through her very core at the thought. The sense of wrongness has increased ten-fold now, but it in two directions. It is as if her existence is fighting against her. And there are questions. Too many questions.

How can a Dalek feel? Is it right for a Dalek to feel? Can a Dalek _have_ a sense of right?

"See you then, Doctor." Rose Tyler says, a simple, fitting farewell that is a promise she knows she can't keep. "It wasn't your fault." She reassures him, knowing him well enough to know the first thing he'd do was to blame himself. He had enough blame already. "Remember that, okay? It wasn't your fault. And d'you know what? I-I wouldn't have missed it for the world…"

She hears her own voice echoing from outside the metal prison of her body. How can she be within and without?

It is then that she remembers there is Rose Tyler, and the Dalek who used her. She is not Rose Tyler. It hurts to realize that. It hurts more to realize the Doctor has shut them both in.

Fear now. Of death and of leaving the Doctor all alone…

She knows the Doctor better now too. All Daleks know him, but she _knows_ him. Because she is Rose Tyler, and she isn't. She is the Dalek. The Dalek knows the Doctor, and the Dalek must kill.

"Exterminate!" The Dalek fires the deadly beam as it always has, with the ease of a single thought, a single whim. But she does not want Rose Tyler to die. She stops the Dalek that is herself. She cannot kill the only one who did not fear her. She cannot kill herself. Rose Tyler must survive. The Daleks must survive.

The silence after a failure to kill is deafening.

"Go on then. Kill me." Still no fear in her voice, the Rose Tyler that is not Dalek demands a completion as any good Dalek soldier would. "Why are you doing this?"

She does not want to face the answer, so she becomes the soldier. "I am armed. I will kill. It is my purpose." She knows how to be a soldier at least. She does not know how to be herself.

"They're all dead because of you." She throws the accusation at herself, and for the first time in its long life, the Dalek feels guilt. She has laid the blame upon herself. Guilt of death. It is not the Dalek way. It is Rose Tyler's guilt she feels. Rose Tyler's blame.

"They are dead because of us!" She realizes the truth of it in more than one way. All the little human soldiers who died to keep the Dalek from herself.

"And now what?" She asks herself, the question that has not stopped plaguing her since her wakening. What is left for the last Dalek? What is left for the killer without a cause? "What are you waitin' for?"

She cannot answer that. She does not know. There are too many emotions. The emotions create variables, and these variables even her brilliant Dalek mind cannot comprehend. "I feel your fear." She confesses, as close to begging for an answer as her pride for allow. How does Rose Tyler function with all these emotions?

"What do you expect?" Rose Tyler does not understand. She doesn't understand what she is trying to tell her, trying to admit. Rose Tyler must understand!

"Daleks do not fear! Must not fear!" She fires, again, and feels the fear rising. She revels in the pain of fear and understands Masochism also. An end to the pain of one's own existence exchanged for the pain of fear to make you forget all else. Another shot, the other side. More fear.

"You gave me life." She accuses, understanding now also what it is to feel gratitude and regret. "What else have you given me?" More emotions. New emotions. Emotions! "I am contaminated!" Disgust, overwhelming shame, washes over her as she stands before herself to demand answers. What is she?

Rose Tyler is silent. Rose Tyler offers herself no answers. Perhaps no one has the answers. But there is one who might. Temporary calm falls as the soldier's training sets in again. "Relocate yourself." She demands, waving her weapon threateningly even though it is an empty threat. A lie.

She has never lied before. Daleks do not lie. Daleks are honest.

Rose Tyler believes the lie of the weapon though, moving slowly to stand in the middle of the hallway, right next to her captor, herself. She never takes her eyes off herself, either of her.

It takes another thought, a bit of her brilliance, to reactivate the simple human surveillance systems. She knows the Doctor. He will listen. "Open the bulk-head or Rose Tyler dies." Another lie, this one in words, to the enemy of the Dalek, and the love of Rose Tyler. To the Doctor.

"You're alive." She can hear the relief and surprise in his tone, almost feel it with him as she sees his face through computers in her head. She feels then the most painful emotion yet. It is a mix of jealousy and betrayal. He is not speaking of her. He is speaking of Rose Tyler who is not Dalek.

Forever brave in the face of danger, Rose tries to grin. "Can't get rid of me."

The Doctor is not amused. He was in too much pain to recover so quickly. She knows his pain now. "I thought you were dead." He says darkly, almost a scold at Rose for making him think that. Even though it is really her who has hurt him. In her pain she wants to hurt him more too.

"Open the bulk-head!" She demands, sure that she cannot take much more of the emotions Rose is giving her. She feels the trust, and the warmth at hearing his voice. She feels the guilt at having caused him pain. She feels love.

"Don't do it." Rose pleads, and she feels the sacrifice, the noble selflessness that takes. It is not for the millions might die that she does it though. It is for only one. Only him.

So she asks him the question. "What use are emotions if you will not save the woman you love?"

"I killed her once." He declares, admits, with the greatest of pain. He has killed so many. Too many. This she, the Dalek, also understands. "I can't do it again." She knows, because she did not have the strength to do it either. She is like the Doctor in that. Neither of them could stand to kill Rose Tyler, no matter the reason.

He presses that single button, because he has to.

She leads herself forward, because it's the only direction she knows how to go.

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**A/N:** What do ya think? A bit confusing at the start. My first real stream of consciousness fanfic. Please review if you think it was worth the read. 


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